Celebrating four years of the Political Youth Academy

A selection of participants from the last four years of our 'Summer Academy' programme take part in an evaluation visit to the Hague and Brussels.

Over four years, the Labour Party has supported a Political Youth Academy for young leaders from Eastern Europe.

Organised in cooperation with the Foundation Max van der Stoel and the Dutch Labour Party the academy has trained over 100 young men and women in skills including ideology, campaigning, debating and public speaking.

To celebrate their achievements and to review the impact of the academy, we organised a three day evaluation visit for a selection of participants from the past four years. Participants were selected by their parties on the basis of who had achieved the most in their public or political careers since their attendance.

The participants flew to the Netherlands and Belgium which exposed them to the international and European institutions based in Brussels and The Hague, such as the European Parliament and Peace Palace, to gain a first-hand introduction to the importance of these institutions in a multi-lateral world.

The visit also included a visit to the headquarters of the Dutch Labour Party, and provided further skills training and networking opportunities for the group with training from representatives from the Netherlands and the UK. The feedback from the visit will help in the future design of the Summer Academy which we hope to restart later this year.